The present invention relates to a chair construction and particularly to an arrangement whereby a decorative cushion cover may be removably secured to at least a portion of the frame itself.
The prior art discloses a plurality of means by which a cover may be secured to the frame of a chair, but each prior known arrangement has serious drawbacks. For example, one of the most common ways in which a cover is fastened to the frame of a chair is by gluing or stitching the two components together. Gluing and stitching do not foreclose removal of the cover, but they considerably complicate the removal and replacement. If the cover is stitched, the stitching must first be cut away to remove the cover, and if the same cover were to be retained this would require one to proceed most carefully in order not to damage the cover material, and even after the most painstaking care some material would be sufficiently damaged by having been originally stitched to preclude further use thereof. Moreover, even if the cover were wholly replaced, the holes made through the chair frame to accommodate the original stitching might or might not be acceptable for restitching.
On the other hand, if glue had been used the cover material would probably be too badly damaged during its removal for one to consider reusing it. Then too, the dried, residual glue would have to be scraped off of the chair and if the replacement cover were also to be glued, sufficient time would be required after the replacement cover had been installed for the glue to harden.
To obviate the difficulties attendant upon such semipermanent means of securing the cover as stitching and gluing, the prior art has also proposed compressively inserting conjoined cushions and covers into appropriate lateral retaining slots in the frame of the chair, but such arrangements tend to become too loose during use.
As a compromise between these two extremes the prior art has proposed the use of a variety of special fasteners by which the cover is retained to the frame of the chair, but these have heretofore been too readily removable by inadvertent manipulation, have required at least semi-skilled personnel to effect removal and/or reinstallation or have been too expensive to manufacture and maintain. Moreover, to allow facile replacement of the cover, the aesthetic appearance of the chair has often suffered unduly.